


Sing Us A Song Tonight

by Princess_Aleera



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Bar!AU, Clint is the piano man, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, This is a sad, Veteran!Steve, Vietnam War references, but it's also a happy, implied PTSD, what happens when author listens to billy joel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 11:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1224742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Aleera/pseuds/Princess_Aleera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the kind of tired, brown-yet-somehow-classy bar that needs an old piano in a corner – one slightly out of tune, like the people who come here – and Clint likes that. He might not have enough years on his back to be the dry, old, talented piano player this place needs, but he's good enough to play mellow tunes as the place slowly fills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Us A Song Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunasky3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasky3/gifts).



> This is, apparently, what happens when I listen to Billy Joel's Piano Man. Dedicated to lmx_v3point3 and lunasky3 because they each bought a fic from me in the last fandom_aid auction on livejournal, and I haven't had time to finish those yet. <3

It's a quarter to nine when the regulars arrive. Clint glances up and at the door each time it opens, the small brass bell above it jingling softly, and nods at the faces he recognize. He's more into rock than jazz, personally, but this is the kind of tired, brown-yet-somehow-classy bar that needs an old piano in a corner – one slightly out of tune, like the people who come here – and Clint likes that. He might not have enough years on his back to be the dry, old, talented piano player this place needs, but he's good enough to play mellow tunes as the place slowly fills, and he's got enough of an ear that when someone speaks up and asks for a specific song, he can usually swing it.

Steve is one of the first – he usually is. Clint feels a little bad for the guy; the veteran's pension doesn't leave much extra in Steve's pocket, but he still comes in every day Clint plays: Saturdays and Wednesdays. According to Tony, he comes here most other days too. Steve's a harmless, old guy, really. He usually walks up to Clint and strikes up conversation, a glass of beer in his hand and an 'excuse me for disturbing' smile on his face. Clint's kind of a quiet guy himself, but that seems to fit Steve well. Clint doesn't think Steve needs much from his peers, other than a listening ear.

“You're looking dapper today, Cap,” Clint says when Steve hobbles over. Steve looks down at himself – crisp suit with the military jacket Clint rarely sees, unless it's a special occasion – and his smile widens. There are too many age lines in Steve's face, considering the fact that he's only a few decades older than Clint, and his eyes have that dull shine too many ex-military men and women wear.

“Thirty-three years ago today,” Steve says and puts his beer down gently on a nearby table. He always uses coasters, something Clint finds strangely endearing. “Figured I should, you know, make an effort.” His lips quirk into a sad smile. “Bucky always called me a slob, for fun – I was the only guy in our troop that never got written up for being sloppy.”

Ah. The infamous Sergeant Barnes. “It's been another year already, huh,” Clint says and finishes his generic tune, fingers dancing across the piano keys mostly out of their own volition. He clinks his own glass with the old captain in sympathy. “To Bucky?”

Steve's eyes light up. “To Bucky.” He drains most of his glass and signals Tony for another; the bartender nods absently, but Clint knows he – like Clint – is already counting the numbers of glasses Steve's downing. Steve is by no means a mean drunk, or even a _loud_ drunk; he just gets sadder and sadder, slurring as he reminisces about his 'Nam days. Sometimes he tells the story about That Mission, the one that ended with his best sergeant and best friend bleeding out at the bottom of A Shau valley. And then he'll cry. He's been a regular long enough that Clint and Tony can walk him home, or even pat him on the back and hug him when he gets teary, but it's always something that makes Steve incredibly ashamed and embarrassed in the morning. Steve can usually hold his liquor well – he goes through enough glasses even on a regular Saturday – but this clearly isn't a regular Saturday for him. So when Tony brings over another Heineken, Clint turns back to his piano.

“Got a song for me, Cap?” he asks and looks over at Steve, who's staring wistfully at his fresh beverage.

“Hm?” Steve blinks. “Oh, I don't know. There's a song, we used to listen to it on the radio between missions – well, when it worked, anyway – and Bucky, he would do this, this impression-” he grins, but it freezes on his face. “Anyway,” he continues, halting, “I don't... remember what it's called anymore. Or how it goes.”

“So you don't have a song for me, is what you're saying,” Clint says gently, and Steve chuckles into the mouth of his beer. He sounds so tired.

“Just – just play your piano version of _[Enter Sandman](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oxmZ3xoxfE)_ , I know Tony loves that one.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Clint says and begins playing.

Tony whoops from the bar, in the middle of his cleaning, and a couple of the other regulars cheer. Clint usually goes through a couple of Metallica songs in a night – jazz place or no, some of these songs sound really good on a solo piano. Sometimes, Clint sings, but he's not a great singer – he's a better piano player.

“On the house,” comes Tony's voice from behind him, and then a vodka cranberry materializes to his left. “You know me too well, Barton.”

Clint grins at him, fingers expertly seeking out the right tangents without even looking. “Thank Cap, he's the one who requested it.”

“Aww, Cap,” Tony chirps and cleans off Steve's table with his dish rag. “You're a sweetheart.”

Steve nods, but his smile is still brittle and his eyes have far-away look to them. “Yeah,” he says and picks at the label of his bottle.

Tony glances at Clint and sighs. “Let me know when you need another one, Steve,” he says and leaves Steve alone. Tony and Clint are kind of similar, and Clint knows the bartender half wants to pat Steve on the back, or – hell, even give the guy a hug, 'cause he sure needs one. But Clint suspects there's a little more to the story about Bucky than the Captain lets on, because he gets this hurt, shadowed look every time a guy touches him.

Clint finishes the song and takes a swig of his new drink. Most of his drinks here are on the house, although he doesn't know if that's more to do with his friendship with Tony, or if the manager – Mr. Coulson – sees it as part of his meager payment. Clint doesn't mind either way – Tony makes great drinks. Mr. Coulson should be coming later; he usually does, to chat with the regulars and listen to Clint play. He has a favorite spot near Clint's corner where he sits and listens, sometimes with work or a book, sometimes with nothing at all. Clint glances at the clock – three more hours to go, just about.

The space at the bar in front fills while the clock ticks towards ten, and Clint watches the life absently as he plays. Tony jokes and grins and laughs with the best of them, the epitome of the friendly bartender. But Clint's been around for a while, and he knows Tony – so he notices the slight strain of Tony's smile, the way his shoulders are a little tight, the way his smile sometimes slips away entirely when he thinks no one is looking. Clint might have vague dreams of becoming a concert pianist some day, but it's Tony who's stuck here, that he knows.

“You know, I could be someone big,” Tony said to him once. “Like, I'm pretty sure I could be a billionaire if I just – had a place to start, you know?” And Clint does know – they're from similar backgrounds, he and Tony, something he'd found out that late Saturday after the bar was closed. Both of them kicked out of their families when they were kids, left to their own devices – neither him nor Tony got through high school because of it, though Clint secretly believes that Tony's actually very smart. When they first met, Tony worked at this bar and called it a summer job – just a way to get money until he could get a college degree. Seven years later, they're both still here. Tony still doesn't have his degree, but he hasn't given up dreaming yet.

They know, now, that they're not going anywhere. And whereas Clint is... mostly okay with that, he doesn't think Tony is.

“Hey, do you, uh, do you by any chance know _[Downtown](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZKFzAa1J58)_?”

Clint looks over at the built, yet somehow gangly guy who stands awkwardly by Steve's table. He's got a Martini with four olives in it in one hand, and looks at Clint with an overly disarming grin.

“Petula Clark? 'Course I do, Bruce,” Clint says and winks at him. “Comin' up in just a minute.”

“Thanks,” Bruce says, and looks relieved as he folds a twenty-dollar note and stuffs it into the small glass jar on the piano. He nods at Steve, who nods back, but neither of them talk. Steve seems to be deeply in his usual anniversary thoughts, and Bruce rarely strikes up conversation with anyone. He's a decent guy, Clint figures; likes to keep to himself, never drinks more than two drinks with alcohol in one night, and always tips too much. He always leaves before closing time, and Clint's never heard him raise his voice even once. It's hard not to like Bruce, but it's also really hard to get to know him. Five years he's been coming here, on and off – every now and then, he stays gone for a few months doing God-knows-what before he's back like he never left – but Clint can still count the stuff he knows about the guy on two hands. He doesn't know where Bruce lives or works – if he works at all – doesn't know whether he has someone else in his life, what he likes doing on his free time except reading books about history in a corner of the bar. Clint doesn't even know the guy's last name. Tony claims he's heard rumors that he's a novelist, and that he isn't seeing one because he 'doesn't have the time', but Clint's not sure if he buys that. Nobody with too little time for a personal life would spend half their days in this dingy bar, no matter how good their pianist is.

Clint keeps his gaze on Bruce when he changes the song; sees the corners of Bruce's mouth lift barely when the first piano notes from _Downtown_ begins, sees how his foot taps with the lazy rhythm. Bruce looks up from his book when Natasha slides into the booth next to him; another regular. Natasha's every bit as much of a soldier as Steve is, even if he's long since retired and she's still in the Navy. She's one of the lifer's, it's easy to see – Clint doesn't know much about her job, but he knows she's been steadily climbing the ranks for the past decade or so, and probably will keep doing that for the rest of her working life.

Even longer, perhaps, Clint muses to himself; Natasha is a being from another time, even more so than Steve – a brand of soldier, _warrior_ , that doesn't really exist anymore. He wouldn't be surprised if she got killed in battle; he thinks she'd prefer that. She's a pretty woman, in a seriously intimidating way, but her arms and face – most every bit of skin she occasionally shows when she forgoes her track pants and band t-shirt with a dress – is riddled with scars. She has a tattoo of a spider on her right shoulder; a Black Widow. It's old and faded, and Clint once had the balls to ask her about it (he was very, very drunk at the time). She looked at him, tilted her head in a way that made him want to reel back, and answered him in fluent Russian. Since Clint doesn't speak a word of Russian past 'Vodka', he didn't get it, and he's never asked again.

She has sat down net to Bruce, for now, wearing her usual attire and with a tumbler of what-looks-like-whisky in her hand. They talk, heads close together and body language relaxed. Clint wonders, sometimes, if Natasha stays around Bruce and Steve mostly because they're so clearly not interested in flirting with her – or if she can see, like Clint can, that they have a lot in common.

The sound of glass shattering doesn't make him jump, not anymore, but Clint swirls his head around in the opposite direction nonetheless. Between him and Tony's bar, in the midst of several small tables and accompanying chairs, stands their only waiter.

“Jävlar!” Thor swears and drags a big, meaty hand through his ridiculously long and blonde and curly hair. He looks over towards Tony, who waves him off – this isn't a new thing. Thor is huge and clumsy and clearly not cut out for the waiter profession, but he's living here on a working visa and he's intimidating enough in physical presence that he can double as a bouncer. The big secret about Thor – aside form the fact that his visa went out eight months ago and he should technically be back in Sweden by now – is that he's a Golden Retriever in human form. He's one of those people who feel guilty when they accidentally step on spiders, something Clint finds endlessly amusing and very cute.

“I do apologise, Anthony,” Thor sighs and mops up beer and bits of glass.

“Don't worry about it, Blondie-bear.” Tony already has a fresh beer waiting at the bar, and Thor apologizes to the customer as well, just to be certain. Clint isn't sure where Thor picked up his particular brand of English – it sounds like a mix between Shakespeare in the Park and a 'Learn English' audio tape. He also has a thing where he calls everyone by their 'proper' names; Anthony, Clinton, Steven, and none of them have yet to make him stop. Thor's sunny disposition and affinity for baking cakes when he ruins stuff (which is pretty often) makes it hard to stay mad at the guy.

Plus, there is this whole thing where the reason he lives in New York and not in Sweden is because of a deranged younger brother; one he only talks about when he's really drunk. Once, he showed Clint a long, ugly scar on his right side and told him about that time when his brother stabbed him. “Loki is a good man,” he'd said right after, assuring himself rather than Clint, probably; “but his mind is most unsettled.”

Thor stands by a table full of business men, now, listening to their inane talk and nodding in all the right places. Clint doubts Thor has any idea what they're actually talking about, but Thor seems to relish any opportunity to observe and practice English-speak. The business men all order pitchers of beer and talk too loudly, too happily, too obviously _look at us, we're not alone on a Saturday night because we're here, sharing a drink_. Clint gets it; it's why this place has regulars, after all. They probably wouldn't survive without people like Steve, Bruce, Natasha; lonely people with an affinity for darkened bars and soft piano music.

“Um, Clint? Excuse me,” Steve says and pushes away his fourth glass, eyes on the table.

“Yeah, Cap?” Clint smiles, even if he doesn't see. Steve almost always apologizes when he starts talking, like he assumes that no one is interested in what he has to say. Clint wonders if it's a Vet thing, a Steve thing, or both.

“I... have a song, if you're still taking requests.”

“For you? Always.” Clint winks when Steve looks up.

Steve nods and fingers with his empty glass. “ _[Brothers in Arms](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhdFe3evXpk)_ ,” he says, which Clint could have guessed – it's an old favourite of the guy, even if it makes him seem ten years older when listening to it.

“Sure thing, Cap,” Clint murmurs. “Want me to sing?”

“That would be lovely, Clint,” Steve says and gives him a genuine smile. As Clint sings, softly and thinking of pictures and clips from the war he was too young to properly remember, Steve's eyes grow glassy, then misty, before the Vet hides them behind one hand. Clint is glad that his singing and playing can inspire that kind of emotion in people, but it doesn't stop him from feeling sorry for his friend.

Steve wipes his hand across his face when Clint is finishing, and they are red-rimmed and old and full of things Clint doesn't think he can ever understand. But he smiles at Clint and nods, and his shoulders seem a fraction less tight, even if he does ask Tony for yet another drink. Clint leaves him be and does an instrumental version of _Mad World_ – because it is – humming along under his breath. He hears someone sing along, but it's none of his regulars.

The jar of coins and small bills fills steadily as the Wednesday becomes early, early Thursday, and Clint sings a couple of songs he knows and plays the rest and lets his fingers do the work; shares another drink with Steve and a nod at Bruce, and glance after glance with his old friend Tony. It's past one in the morning when Mr. Coulson finally walks in, dressed in a suit like he always is, and gives Clint a warm smile. He walks up to Tony and says something in his ear; Tony breaks out one of his few, honest smiles for the evening and blows a raspberry back at him.

Mr. Coulson does the rounds with the regulars; strikes up short conversation, but quietly so, because most of the bar – strangely enough – sit and listen to Clint's playing. He'd love to be a concert pianist one day, but he's already got a crowd, he knows that. In a way, this is Clint's bar, as much as it is Tony's and Mr. Coulson's.

Mr. Coulson, whose first name is Phil, eventually comes to Clint's corner. He puts a dollar in Clint's full jar and looks across the room. Steve has moved to the bar, where he strikes up stilted conversation with Tony – who in return is trying to get Steve to drink some water and sober up a bit. Mr. Coulson usually settles here, by Clint and his piano, the days he comes by. On the Wednesday he always carries paperwork with him, but every other Saturday he orders a drink from Tony and listens at Clint's music with nothing else to occupy him, seemingly satisfied with just listening. It pleases Clint is some bone-deep, strange way.

The man has a kind of gaze that's difficult to keep for long; it's so easy to get lost in it. It's strange because the rest of Phil is so unassuming. He looks like a regular suit, with a wife, two-point-five children, a boring desk job, and a nice house on the outskirts of Manhattan. Clint knows he has none of those things. Phil has been alone for as long as Clint has known him, with no family nearby, he has a second job in some agency he never talks about, and he sleeps in the small apartment above his bar. “It's a pretty good crowd,” Phil says. 

“That it is, sir,” Clint says. And, because he's in a good mood today despite Steve's anniversary, he gives the man a lingering smile. “You got a tune for me?”

Phil's eyes crinkle, making him look softer and younger. Phil is about Steve's age, Clint knows, but he looks decades younger – even with greying, thinning hair where Steve's is still blond and boy-ish. While Steve was on the front lines in 'Nam, Phil was home here and protesting – Clint overheard a conversation between the two a couple of years ago. Actually, it was exactly three years ago, during that same anniversary. Steve told Phil the tale of Bucky, the tale they all know by now, and Phil listened and talked about the protest marches and the news reports and his best friend, Nick, who had lost an eye outside Huê´. It occurred to Clint, then, how old and lonely Phil was – not so much because of what was said between the two, but because the understanding in Phil's eyes was such a mirror of the pain in Steve's.

Clint is glad he can sit here, two nights a week, and make people forget about that pain for a little while. Maybe just for a minute, even.

“I have a song,” Phil says softly, fingers gripping his glass hard. “If you know the lyrics, I'd like to hear your cover of it.”

“Sure thing,” Clint says and finishes up his piece, draining his drink. “Lay it on me.”

“ _[Fly Me to the Moon](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFBRJFN3p8)_ ,” Phil says and doesn't let Clint's eyes go.

“Well,” Clint says, “this is supposed to be a jazz bar and all.” The joke is bad and falls pretty flat between them, but one corner of Phil's mouth twitches and that's enough.

“ _Fly me to the moon_ ,” Clint begins, the chords familiar in his fingers, and hears how the bar hushes down to listen. He bobs his head barely in time with the music – Sinatra's not bad, for jazz – and looks at Phil out of the corner of his eye.

It's only when he sings “ _in other words – darling, kiss me,_ ” that Clint begins to question the song choice. Phil still looks at him, calmly and with that same, little smile on his face that he gets all the time when Clint sings, but there are two spots of pink high on his cheeks, and Clint thinks _oh_ and almost loses the beat of the song.

By the time he gets to the _I love you_ part, Phil's cheeks are pink all over, as is his neck, and Clint finds himself wondering how far down that blush goes. Then he wonders why he hasn't wondered that before and finds at that, well, he kind of has.

When he finishes, he gets a round of applause for his trouble, and that breaks the little spell he's weaved between him and technically-his-boss. Clint startles and looks around, smiles and nods back when his regulars nod at him; Bruce walks up to him and puts another tenner in his jar, before he shuffles back down to Natasha's company.

Tony is there suddenly and picks up Clint's empty glass. That's technically Thor's job, but Thor seems to be deep in a conversation with Steve, who is starting to look misty-eyed again, and nods at each word Thor says.

“I want you to know that the song was my idea,” Tony mutters into Clint's ear. “I swear to God, you two are such kids. Cheers.” And he clinks the glass against Clint's shoulder, flings his old tea-towel over his shoulder, and goes back to his bar.

There is an hour left before the bar closes down. Clint looks over at Phil, whose cheeks are still pink, and smiles. Then he starts playing his own instrumental, jazzy version of Etta James's _[At Last](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q2rZb7E0EY)_.

Phil beams.


End file.
